Thursday, January 17, 2013

Whistling Past The Newtown Graveyard

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?

THIS is what everyone had their knickers in a twist about?

THIS is what had Sean Hannity hyperventilating?

THIS is a fucking joke.

THIS is feelgood measures.

THIS is a President saying listen to the children. I did and have done something about it. No, not the children here around me but the dead children of Sandy Hook.

THIS is Barack Obama and his crew shamelessly using the ghosts of Newtown to advance a political agenda without doing anything at all.

Which is typical of this crew.

Most of this centers around the tightening of background checks. Not something I object to except the way the checks are run as a whole.

For instance...

Say you attend a wedding as a young person and have just a little too much to drink. And are pulled over because you wobbled a bit. DUI.

Seven or so years later when you try to purchase a gun, with an otherwise spotless record, that DUI can keep you from buying that gun. I saw it happen just last year at my local gun dealer.

So I don't favor the background checks to begin with, at least not as they are.

There are some more onerous things in here, such as doctors asking patients about guns in the home.

My kid's pediatrician knows about my guns. And I about his. We had a grand discussion one day when the kid was down with something or the other. There'll be a fight on that anyway, especially since he is telling HHS to ignore his own Obamacare provision forbidding this (a new low for Uncle Barry, telling his own people to ignore a law he rammed through).

Number 7 & 8. . .gun owners ought to be doing this themselves anyway.

Number 11. Wait. You're executive ordering yourself to (finally) nominate an ATF Director. Ummm. . . is that like listening to the voices in your head?

(ATF should be a convenience store, not a Federal Agency).

And then there's some mental health stuff in their, so he can say to the pro-gunners See! I listened to you, too!

As for his legislative proposals he needn't have bothered. Boehner's "we'll take it under advisement" attitude pretty much said Ok Folks, let's put the chairs on the table until next time.

So all this was done to mollify his base. Mollify the anti-gun crowd. So that when it likely doesn't go through he can say "See, it was the Republicans that stopped it!"  And provide a bit of cover for his democrat pals who really didn't want to get on board with this and now don't have to stand in open defiance of their President and vote against it to pacify their constituents or go against their constituents (and lose their jobs) and vote with their leader.

He did it because Uncle Joe said he would, to save face and look tough. But he knew there was no way the NRA and 80,000,000 screaming bitter clingers (Do we have any bitter clingers in the audience tonight?) would quietly let him get away with Constitutional circumvention on this.

Meanwhile the real heavy lifting on mental health issues can be deftly avoided.

This is all shit. Pissing in the wind.

It is nothing more than Whistling Past The Graveyard of the Ghosts of Sandy Hook.

Fox:


READ: Full List of 23 Executive Actions in Gun Violence Reduction Measures

At President Obama’s announcement on new steps to be taken in an effort to control gun violence in the U.S., the president will sign measures which will initiate 23 separate executive actions on gun violence.

It’s important to note that not each one is actually an executive order or presidential memorandum.The Office of the Press Secretary sent out the following list of all 23 executive actions.
Today, the President is announcing that he and the Administration will:
1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.
7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.
10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.
11. Nominate an ATF director.
12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.
13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.
15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.
16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.
17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.
18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.
20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.
21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.
22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.
23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.


12 comments:

Epaminondas said...

DR. asks about guns at home?

Polite response... 'doc, none of you biz, and you should be practicing civil disobedience to that request'

Otherwise I see a load of money being spent to do very little.

I can't argue the need for a 30 shot clip, but 4 taped together 10 shot clips in 2 reversed clip groups seems to pretty well void that entire approach to ban a big clip if the weapon is used against an unarmed group of innocents.

I also see NOTHING to determine if a felon lives in the same house as the weapon, and NOTHING which can help to identify those individuals whose mental state precludes weapons in the same house they live in.
I see nothing to research means to identify such people.

Such people have OTHER means at their disposal to harm groups of innocent people.

This is a blind for more govt intervention in the details of our day to day lives.

How long until we no longer like this America?

What then?

We will just put on cruise control and suck the govt teat while all around us we see encroaching rust, and decay for our children and grandchildren?

As the song says, IS THAT ALL THERE IS? (Take it away MR)

Always On Watch said...

The diagnostic manual for psychiatry lists just about every damn quirk as a mental illness.

Have you seen the manual?

Web addiction isn't there, but "too much" time on the web is listed as a symptom of clinical depression.

Clinical depression is a mental disorder.

Alcoholism is a mental disorder.

Blah, blah, blah.

Based on what doctors have in your electronic records, YOU may find yourself as unfit to obtain a firearm.

Always On Watch said...


Recommended reading
(I am reading it for the second time right now!): The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry.

Don't let the title deceive you. There is much more to this book than just a discussion of psychopathy.

Always On Watch said...

Recently, a dear friend of mine went to the doctor for insomnia (menopause) and back pain. When she checked her electronic medical record, the doctor had entered the probable diagnosis of clinical depression!

The feds are going to mine those electronic medical records like you can't believe!

Epaminondas said...

No one is going to seek treatment to have a result in a federal MINISTRY OF TRUTH DB.

People will go for irretrievable physical ailments and that's it.

Who knows, maybe this will lower medical costs in the USA.

OBAMACARE WORKS!

Always On Watch said...

Epa,
Obama is emphasizing that adolescent intervention is needed. The schools will be tasked with "diagnosis."

School counselors are very adept at prying.

Epaminondas said...

Are they adept at objective diagnosis?

Or are a lot of kids who are not in the mainstream going to suddenly discover they are getting a lot of attention, and therefore pressure to be like everyone else?

Kids who might like to read, or go to the movies with someone special instead of puking beer in the restaurant parking lot on friday night? And will that date suddenly find themselves the subject of questions to verify if this suspected loner should be identified as a problem?

These kinds of approaches are not a diagnosis to me.

But then, I WAS (an am) DIFFERENT

Nicoenarg said...

In Argentina its impossible to get a gun because of psychiatrists labeling you "mentally unstable" at every turn.

Simple questions like, "If someone's is coming toward you with a gun and you have a gun, would you shoot to defend yourself?" And if you say "yes", then forget about being able to obtain a gun and if you say "no freakin' way, I would call the police while the dude's shooting at me! I'm only getting a gun for target practice." Then you're considered sane.

I do agree with MR though, there was a lot of "fear-mongering" around this but what came out seems like mere lip service.

midnight rider said...

Let's break out the booze and have a ball

If that's all there is

Epaminondas said...

@Nico ... so the only way to get a gun is to witness that you won't use it to defend yourself?

Somewhere, Kafka is having a drink.

Nicoenarg said...

Epa, that's ONE of the tests. There's a whole series of tests and it takes months.

The only way to get a gun is to prove that you are going to use it for target practice.

There is a concept of "guns for self-defense" for people whose lives are threatened but usually only politicians get a license to carry a gun for those purposes.

Now, of course you could, and many people do, lie about your intentions. But here's the problem, if someone breaks into your home and tries to kill you and you defend yourself by shooting the bastard, and you're not shot yourself because the robber missed...you are the one who goes to jail and the robber gets off with no charge because the government has decided that there are no good people or bad people or good actions or bad actions and the one who is hurt more is the victim. Doesn't matter what or who started it all.

If the robber dies, then buh bye normal life and you're imprisoned for murder.

Again, there are a lot of ways around getting a gun but it depends on what kind of society you live in. Argentina willingly bent over to be f***ed when Juan Peron took over and up until today everyone is still assuming the position. When the government passed laws to prohibit guns, people willingly gave up their weapons.

Concepts of rights, as they exist in the US, don't exist in Argentina. A 'right' is what the government lets you have. The constitution states that "whatever is not prohibited is allowed". But no one gives two sh*ts about the constitution here since Juan Peron used it as toilet paper.

Obama, his words and his actions resemble Juan Peron a lot. Who knows, he may be taking a page or two out of Peron's book. Or maybe the whole damn book!

Bluepanic said...

Though President Obama pushes forward with an assault rifle ban using the tragedy at Sandy Hook as an example, NBC news admits there was no assault rifle used at Sandy Hook Elementary.

link
http://beforeitsnews.com/media/2013/01/nbc-admits-no-assault-rifle-used-at-sandy-hook-2451558.html